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A couple of months ago I was asked what seemed, to me, an interesting question. As many readers of this blog likely know, SAH is well on its way to completing the first major stage of its SAH Archipedia project, SAH Archipedia Classic Buildings, where all fifty states will feature online entries of its 100 most “representative” buildings. I’ve signed on, along with my former student and now-colleague Robert Franklin, to co-coordinate the SAH Archipedia project for the state of Washington. Hardly claiming to be authorities on the architecture of the state—we chose to marshal several scholars, preservation consultants, professors, graduate students, and even the state architectural historian to help draft most of the entries rather than attempting to do all of them ourselves.

Opportunities

Research at the Paris IAS takes place inside two types of programs: the non-thematic bottom-up program based on free individual initiatives, and the thematic program, presently related to building bridges between the humanities and social sciences on the one hand, and the cognitive and neuro-sciences, on the other.
The bottom-up non-thematic program
The primary mission of the Paris IAS is to be a research centre anchored in the humanities and social sciences, open to any discipline and subject within this domain. Its aim is to enable a fruitful dialogue between researchers from different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds. Approximately 3/4 of the fellows will be selected in the framework of this program, for which the excellence of the researcher and his/her project is the essential criterion.
The Thematic program: The mind and the brain. The interface between humanities and social sciences and neuroscience
Beside applications within the above mentioned non-thematic program, the Paris IAS invites applications centred on the dialogue between the humanities, social sciences, and the cognitive and neuro-sciences. Approximately 1/4 of the fellows will be selected in relation to this theme.
The exponential development of scientific data on genetics and the brain gives us more and more insight on the functioning of the human being in its environment. It is becoming increasingly difficult to reflect on topics such as the Human, mind and consciousness in the humanities and social sciences without taking into account the neuro-anatomic and neuro-functional data produced by life sciences and neuroscience in particular. Reciprocally, neuroscience cannot claim to understand the Human if they do not incorporate the knowledge built up by the humanities.
The aim of this program is to enable the humanities and social sciences to renew their approaches to classical topics or to open new fields of research.
To access to the online application system: http://paris-iea.fr/en/user/register

This two part weekend seminar provides an introduction to architectural photography on mobile devices such as the iPhone and Android. Technique and vision will be developed through lessons at the Center, a guided hands-on photo-walk, and final critique.

Among the possible conference group of themes are, for example:
Crafts, brotherhood and guild houses in town centres (location, architectural forms, furnishings).
Town halls and guild house furnishings (for example, reception pieces, gifts by individual artists).
Sacred spaces in church naves (guild altars / furnishings, brotherhood chapels etc.).
Stained-glass window cycles for civic crafts groups
Guilds and religious orientation
Civic processions / temporary art
The artist as a member of a religious brotherhood
The artist in communal organisations
Artists’ celebrations in the pre-modern era
The artist‘s funeral within the guild
Names and designations of brotherhoods
Competitions
Guild saints and religious veneration
Theories on material culture and material turn
Topography of material culture of the guild system (inventories, clap boards, guild chests, welcome pitchers)
History of collecting the objects
Questions in the history of science and technology in the inner- as well as intra-disciplinary context (for example, guild research in the 19th/20th century; material culture studies and concepts and terms in Germany compared to those in other parts of Europe and in the US)